Blitzed in the polls, the Australian Labor Party have picked the communist solution — straight from the Soviet rule book of Free Speech. Goskomizdat revived as a kind of Goskoshopfront. It’s more desperate and simplistic band-aid legislation to benefit the ruling class and not the people. Surprisingly, the media seems to be silent on this scandalous attack on free-speech.
The Gillard Government tells us the tax’s effect will be minimal, but they are clearly terrified of the blowback.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been directed to enforce accurate business promotions with a $1.1m dollar fine, and team of 23 “carbon cops”, to stop Australian businesses from posting any signs telling the public how much extra they are paying due to the Carbon Tax, or having a “Pretax sale”. Imagine the travesty of transparently letting customers see a breakdown of their invoice, or of warning customers of price rises to come?
A simple repeated message like the one below can take on a life of its own. (And we all know what animal the crowd will think of if we say: “Don’t think of an elephant”):
Of course, some will wave this away by explaining that they just want to stop people making incorrect claims. But do the smell test, and see who this legislation is designed to protect. What customer would be hurt by buying goods cheaper pre-tax? What customer suffers if they “think” the price increase they pay is due to the Carbon Tax, when it’s really partly due to the Mining Tax or creeping inflation? The truth is that the only people “hurt” by a mistaken tax increase claim, o-the-tyranny, would be the an unpopular rulers.
If a company mistakenly blames other price rises on a Tax that had a popular mandate, the company would a) be advertising how much it’s prices had increased, and b) be seen as whinging, not caring about “pollution” and not being a team player. If Gillard had done what she promised (that is, wait for a community consensus on the climate) the whole problem of naughty anti-c-tax-business-signage would have been avoided, not least because that consensus would never have happened, but because even if it had, what business would want to look like a sour-puss, complaining about a fair tax that most of the community saw a need for?
Rulings like this one don’t serve the country. It’s an advertisement for rulers interested in their own welfare above that of their citizens.
For those who argue the ACCC is largely toothless, bear in mind, that no company need be fined $1.1million to have a stifling effect. Calculating the exact cost of the Carbon Tax will be near impossible for anyone other than the direct importer or producer (as Willis Eschenbach points out on Watts Up). Further down the chain, people will have to rely on statements from their suppliers (if any are provided). Few companies will want to push their luck. Most will underestimate the costs, or say nothing.
But censorship has ways of having the opposite effect. If companies can’t advertise that customers “buy air conditioners now, because the prices will rise by x% next month” they can still make contact with journalists and bloggers who can remind the public to put their orders in before June 30th. Unfortunately, those journalists may now find it very hard to get named quotes, or press releases that list dollar estimates. Can someone tell me, here in the Socialist States of Australia, whether journalists are still allowed to list “anonymous sources” or publish industry rumours?
There is easy potential for shop-sign and invoicing dissent. Where previously in a land with free speech there might have been dull annoying messages like “Costs up 10% due to the Carbon Tax”, now there is all kinds of potential for creative skullduggery and political sabotage. Watts Up kicked off the call for alternative “permitted” signs. So here are a few on-the-silly-side from me. (Click for full size images).
…
And some bumper stickers or rubber stampers from Speedy:
The carbon tax:
Julia can’t tell you what it does,
and I can’t tell you what it costs.
***
Don’t waste your money –
that’s the government’s job
***
Our prices have not risen.
Your standard of living has fallen.
***
Prices so low you’ll almost think there wasn’t a carbon tax.
***
No planets were saved in the collection of this tax.
***
Prices have not increased due to the carbon tax.
You are imagining it.
***
Zero carbon tax impact*
(*Apart from items requiring energy, transportation or physical materials in their production, distribution and sales.)
***
Credit to commenters in WUWT
The ACCC helpfully suggests you can just tell your customers you’ve raised prices because “the overall cost of running (your) business has increased”.
It’s all very Orwellian. It’s the tax whose name cannot be spoken.
——————————–
All too subtle.
Something like “WE didn’t increase the price”.
Can you be fined for a single capital? Bold font? Italics?
Damn, 2011 is starting to feel like 1929 all over again. The Not-a-carbon-tax Tax seems to be Australian for Smoot-Hawley.
——————————————
The legal quagmire offers some loopholes
Geoff Sherrington points out the ACCC can’t investigate an individual (only a business), unless a relevant business posts an objection, but then there are plenty of bankers and renewable firms who just might post an objection aren’t there?
But this line of thinking is worth exploring.
Australian Consumer Law. Start here and follow the trail. http://www.consumerlaw.gov.au/content/Content.aspx?doc=the_acl.htm
An Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) [PDF 217KB] [RTF 236KB] signed by the Council of Australian Governments underpins the establishment of the ACL. This mechanism avoids Parliamentary debate. Some extraxts from ACXL papers follow:
…………
C. The objective of the new national consumer policy framework is to improve consumer wellbeing through consumer empowerment and protection, to foster effective competition and to enable the confident participation of consumers in markets in which both consumers and suppliers trade fairly.
D. This objective is supported by six operational objectives:
1) to ensure that consumers are sufficiently well‐informed to benefit from and stimulate effective competition;
2) to ensure that goods and services are safe and fit for the purposes for which they were sold;
3) to prevent practices that are unfair;
4) to meet the needs of those consumers who are most vulnerable or are at the greatest disadvantage;
5) to provide accessible and timely redress where consumer detriment has occurred; and
6) to promote proportionate, risk‐based enforcement.
E. The new national consumer policy framework consists of the following key elements:
1) a national consumer protection law based on the existing consumer protection provisions of the Trade Practices Act and also including:‐
provisions regulating unfair contract terms,
new enforcement and redress powers, and
new provisions based on best practice in State and Territory consumer protection laws;
2) a new national product safety regulatory and enforcement regime; and
3) improved enforcement cooperation and information sharing arrangements between Commonwealth, State and Territory Agencies.
………………………….
On a quick read, the law applies only to businesses, as did the Trade Practices Act.
The ACCC does not seem to have powers to investigate the conduct of an individual not engaged in a business.
Seems to me that private people can paste up whatever signs they like, providing a relevant business has no objection.
……………………….
This Law seems to exclude the Government as defendant.
The ACCC appears to be unable to receive complaints about a product (“The CarbonTax”), of which the Prime Minister said last year “There will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead”. This conduct is tantamount to the premeditated use of misleading words to gain a benefit, which is often an action punishable by law. This broken promise seems to be at odds with D3) ‘to prevent practices that are unfair’. However, this promise seems to have been made before the commencement date of the Australian Consumer Law.
………………………..
Where are you, Sir Humphrey?
More very funny signage options over at WUWT. This whole thread has over 250 comments on this.
20
I won’t call it a “carbon tax price rise” as long as they generously subsidise my eco friendly bio-mass energy converter ( fireplace ) to keep me warm in winter.
I’ll need it to cook my rabbits on anyway.
20
So if they put the price up from $23 a ton will they be breaking their own law?
10
You are happily allowed to mention the carbon tax compensation so, maybe you could have a ‘carbon tax compensation sale’.
10
I am really not laughing, I think I am crying. There was an Australian author who wrote a book/novel, the substance of which I know little, but the title of which I am sure applies today. The title is – “Poor Fellow My Country “.
10
Bruce, and everyone,
this book is by Xavier Herbert. It’s not related to anything mentioned here, but if you can find a copy, I urge you all to read it.
One of the longest novels ever written, coming in at around 1500 pages of fine print (small print for a novel) this is without doubt, ‘The Holy Grail’ of Australian novels, because in my opinion this IS the Great Australian Novel.
Tony.
10
Re “Poor Fellow – My Country”, Indeed an Australian classic. Our country way back in the “good old days”. So much has changed, maybe a lot for the better, but we are paying a terrible price.
Re Carbon Tax – how can prices go up before the law is enacted in 2012?
10
Any impression our prices have risen by 15% due to the Carbon Tax is an illusion, caused by threat of a $1.1million fine.
20
Hey Joe,
I believe my stress levels have increased 15% due to a $23 per ton CO2 tax while big brother threatens $1.1 mill fines.
To over compensate for this, I will smoke 15% more and probably drink 30% more.
Then I just might feel better about this f%^&*n Govt.
10
http://files.sinwt.ru/download.php?file=25FOIA2011.zip
—-
REPLY: This is the same link as reported to be dropped at http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/breaking-news-foia-2011-has-arrived/. ClimateGate II??? Time to check…–Jo
Thank you Foia!
10
The “Readme” file contains some quotes. For instance the quote “Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.” reads like it’s straight out of the handbook of an NGO organization such as…
Givewell.org
At that link we find the following…
The thing that irks me about FOIA2011 is that if he/she/they were so concerned about the wasted resources due to AGW, why bother with playing games and sending the blogosphere into a frenzy trying to find a “eureka” email?
Why not locate that email yourself and make sure it was among the first batch of releases? Why play games? why not put a stop to this madness and SAVE LIVES if that is what’s truly motivating you.
I think FOIA2011 is an a$$hole who is allowing billions of dollars to be flushed down the toilet whilst so many are suffering especially in Africa.
I think FOIA2011 should do the right thing and release the passphrase instead of playing games.
As far as I’m concerned FOIA2011 is just as culpable as any of the “hockey team” and the environmentalists and politicians who have perpetuated this AGW scam on the world.
SHAME ON YOU WHO EVER YOU ARE. YOU ARE NO HERO. YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT TO THOSE ‘OCCUPIERS’ WHO ARE JUST PRETEND ACTIVISTS AGAINST POVERTY.
In your README.TXT file you quote “One dollar can save a life” — the opposite must also be true.
Well, literally millions of dollars is being flushed down the toilet due to the AGW Scam every single day. So long as you sit on the rest of the files YOU ARE PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DEATHS AND SUFFERING caused by those flushed dollars.
STOP PLAYING GAMES, release the rest of the mails and whatever other knowledge you might have about this scam. DO THE RIGHT THING.
10
You might be able to get away with this:
Savvy customers will compare the prices now, with what they remember paying before, and arrive at a figure that will come to represent the tax that cannot be named.
10
There’s an even better way than just trusting everyone’s memory, battling as it will against Treasury propaganda to the contrary with rubbery figures. If the Libs are fair dinkum, they could post prices of selected necessities in brand specific fashion as of 30/06/2012 and run comparisons at 6 and 12 and 18 months, putting it up on a web site for all to see. No need to say it’s price rises are carbon tax related, just let the figures speak for themselves and everyone will infer the rest. The truth will be apparent to all who care to look, spreading by word of mouth in the blogosphere.
10
Or alternatively:
Of course, to remain within the law, the xx% must demonstrably be in proportion to increases in operating costs to the business (which of course includes carbon taxation).
Just thinkin’ …
10
The (forbidden) was supposed to be invisible to the voting public. At the same time, it was supposed to yield huge annual revenues, increase the cost of doing business, increase the cost of energy for everyone, and permit the prancing dancing posturing chattering political class to pretend they are doing something to save the world.
To their surprise, it was not invisible. So they decree that no one will identify the cause of the rising costs and prices nor attempt to allow anyone to escape from them. The pressure against the (forbidden) will continue to build. They will therefor have to take ever stronger measures against business and the general public.
It is a classical train wreck in process situation. The pressures will build to the breaking point. No amount of repressive legislation can prevent the break from happening. Unfortunately, that won’t stop them from trying and it will only make the end result all the more ugly.
10
And the politicians will not accept any responsibility.
They will simply “fire” their advisers with the customary “quiet money”, get a new set of
scapegoatsadvisers and continue.10
Is that the sound of Jackboots resounding down the corridors of power down in Australia?
I left the U.K. a few years back due to continual Labour crap of this sort. I figured if I had to live in a country with bent politicians it may as well be a warm one of my choice.
Has Julie started to work on her salute yet?
20
Nice job with the satirical bumper stickers. The eco fascists and the Australian Tax party coalition are weaving their work beautifully especially because too many australians are too dopey to see it. Soon the government will try to shut down any website that is against this legislation and cuts through their lies like this site. I don’t want to live in that Australia.
20
Back in the days of the GetUp “Say Yes” campaign, I took the liberty of registering the URL http://www.carboncate.com.
The original purpose of the Carbon Cate site was to serve as a repository for every bit of official bullshit uttered by anybody even remotely connected with pushing, promoting or supporting the CAGW fantasy.
The idea was to create a database so that as things get colder and the dying starts in earnest, and these bastards try to distance themselves from the fact that THEY are responsible and should stand trial, there will be a repository of information available to counter their lies and excuses, and to provide evidence against them at their trials for crimes against humanity.
The work progresses.
I have now decided to add a new section to Carbon Cate, along the lines of the old “Dorothy Dix advice to the lovelorn” columns in womens’ magazines of yesteryear.
“Concerned Carbon Cate” invites individuals, businesses, companies and corporations to write to her detailing their estimation of how much their costs have risen as a result of the Carbon Tax and all the other imposts made in the name of “renewable” and “sustainable” policies, which they, by law, are not allowed to inform to their clients and customers about.
Naturally, these comments, along with Carbon Cate’s responses, will be available for the public to read, at the Carbon Cate website.
Further, and subject to public donation, Carbon Cate may just choose to feature some of these claims, and Carbon Cate’s responses, in newspaper, radio, and even television advertising, aimed, of course, at promoting the Carbon Cate website.
For the time being interested parties can respond to:
http://www.carboncate@internode.on.net
I am still investigating the possibility that affected enterprises may be able to advertise the Carbon Cate website address on their packaging etc.
10
Woody Allen who wrote the joke: The plays of William Shakespeare were not written by Shakespeare himself, but by someone with the same name.
There is no set of documents named the carbon tax, just a set of documents about carbon that were given the same name.
IIRC, the ACCC cannot investigate individuals, only businesses under the so-called corporations power. Therefore, a person as an individual can write what he/she chooses about the carbon tax and can post it anywhere where the property owner does not object. Please corect me if I’m wrong, because like Jo, I’m having imagination fun.
10
Whoops, I’ve double-posted a thought. Did not know I was quoted above. Sorry.
——
Quite alright Geoff. I like your line of thinking — Jo
10
Was I mistaken or did the CPI just go through the ozone layer? Or was it a fragment of my imagination?
10
Jo,
I REALLY feel for the people of Australia!
I found our most respected leaders did very little in changing our policies. This kept a stable foundation.
But to do this huge change is going to have massive consequences…Greece sort of comes to mind…
20
We could be heading for a disaster with a co2 tax set at $23 a tonne.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/ubs_emissions_trading_in_europe_to_crash/#commentsmore
10
I wonder how the Gillard government would react to a couple of hundred “Occupy Canberra” types pitching tents in front parliament to protest the carbon tax.
10
They would denigrate and ridicule it just like the Convoy of No Confidence.
10
Business is hard work.Keeping prices up is taxing.
10
These crooks are masters of sophistry.
10
Looks like some more emails have been liberated.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/breaking-news-foia-2011-has-arrived/
10
If these emails are in fact genuine, it shows a widespread pattern of data manipulation to promote a pre-ordained outcome, attempting to hide uncertainties in the data and cover for the complete lack of predictive ability of the GCMs. Not that this is surprising to anyone except the oblivious “man in the street”. What is surprising is the extensive “collaboration” between so many players, that any unbiased observer would prefer to label by the more perjorative term “collusion”, to imbue it with the sinister undertone it so rightfully deserves.
10
tAV has them as well, along with Shub Niggurath. Guess you guys are headed off to bed, while I am just waking up to the news!
10
Dynamite. ClimateGate II
10
We are incompetent here. Lol.
601
“David Jones”
subject: RE: African stations used in HadCRU global data set
to: “Phil Jones”
Thanks Phil for the input and paper. I will get back to you with comments next week.
Fortunately in Australia our sceptics are rather scientifically incompetent. It is also
easier for us in that we have a policy of providing any complainer with every single
station observation when they question our data (this usually snows them) and the
Australian data is in pretty good order anyway
10
I don’t want sound picky but I think Jo may be a little behind the curve on this one.
The Klingon Darsek is now practically worthless as a result of the Klingons having to devalue after leaving the ‘sanctuary’ of the Earth Federation National currency – the EFNZone.
Well informed pundits say that this was inevitable and that the Klingons fiddled their debt figures (with the help of Goldman-Sachs) when they joined EFNZone back in star-date 01.04.1991.
Come on Jo, try to keep up!
10
Notice how there is no exit point for this tax. At what point in time does it become no longer necessary? If such a mechanism is used to halt climate change, surely Mr Garnaut would have catered for an exit provision when its mission accomplished. But there isn’t. That’s because it has never been about climate and all about revenue raising.
I would suggest people just move on until the next general election. Gillard has shown her contempt for the majority of people. We can show our contempt for her at the next election.
10
Wake up you lot
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/breaking-news-foia-2011-has-arrived/
10
We are awake.
The link has already been posted, and we’re busy reading.
November 23 is already shaping up as a “very good day”.
10
The signs are great fun. Here’s one that might work.
Carbon Tax? — Buy Online and Save a Bundle.
10
I like that, John.
People shifting purchases offshore will be in interesting unintended consequence – until they apply the carbon tax to all financial transactions as well. It will be interesting to see how they try to justify that!
Nice one!
10
needing somebody to communicate with industry…
5349: “…..need to identify someone specific to work on the communication to industry end)and I would be happy to approach Bob May or Ron Oxburgh…”
10
Jones:
Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital – hence my comment about the tornadoes group.
Jones:
Useful ones [for IPCC] might be Baldwin, Benestad (written on the solar/cloud issue – on the right side, i.e anti-Svensmark), Bohm, Brown, Christy
Humphrey/DEFRA:
I can’t overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell their story. They want the story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made to look foolish.
Jones:
We don’t really want the bullshit and optimistic stuff that Michael has written […] We’ll have to cut out some of his stuff.
Wils:
What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably […]
Crowley:
I am not convinced that the “truth” is always worth reaching if it is at the cost of damaged personal relationships
Wilson:
I thought I’d play around with some randomly generated time-series and see if I could ‘reconstruct’ northern hemisphere temperatures. […] The reconstructions clearly show a ‘hockey-stick’ trend. I guess this is precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about.
Bradley:
I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year “reconstruction”.
Cook:
I am afraid that Mike is defending something that increasingly cannot be defended. He is investing too much personal stuff in this and not letting the science move ahead.
Barnett:
[IPCC AR5 models] clearly, some tuning or very good luck involved. I doubt the modeling world will be able to get away with this much longer
Jones:
Basic problem is that all models are wrong – not got enough middle and low level clouds.
Jones:
I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process
10
climategate v2.0 for the faithful to explain away:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/breaking-news-foia-2011-has-arrived/#comment-9509
good luck getting your freedom of speech back.
AGW is a pernicious pseudo religion and its believers have no compunction about taking your money and your liberty to enforce their faith on you.
10
Thorne:
I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it
which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.
Carter:
It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much
talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by
a select core group.
Wigley:
Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive […] there have been a number of
dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC […]
Carter:
It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much
talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by
a select core group.
10
Thank you too all the commenters. Emails are flooding in!
FOIA left the link here too.
I’ve added a new post.
Breaking! More emails released. Climategate II?
It’s on!
10
Perhaps something along the lines of-
Our prices have gone up due to inflation.
How much of that inflation was due to carbon tax? God only knows.
10
I thought Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning to us all. It becomes clearer to me that it has been used as a road map instead……
10
There is a school of thought that argues that was Orwell’s intent.
10
Another Fabian conspiracy?
10
Many a true word spoken in jest. . .
10
My WUWT comment copied here
10
[…] November 22, 2011 at 7:08 pm (Perth = 11:08 GMT) GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); […]
10
[…] hours ago, FOIA left a link on my blog to a Russian site (I had […]
10
Bad link.
10
I think this will be my letter
Valued customer.
My expenses have recently risen in part due to the imposition of new energy taxes by the Government. Unfortunately it will be necesssary to pass these costs on in the form of higher charges. Should the next parliament repeal the taxes and wasteful schemes driving up my costs, and the reductions in costs manage to find their way back to me, I will reconsider the price rises.
Thank you for your understanding
The Proprietor
10
How about- My costs so my prices rise have suddenly increased for no reason- by coincidence exactly the same time as the new carbon tax came into effect.
10
Over here in Ireland when we were “ruled” by our nearest and dearest neighbour something arose in the minds of the British Establishment.
This was…..”The Irish Question” (In other words how did they solve it, or try to)?
The only problem was that when the British thought that they had found the answer, the Bloody Minded Irish changed the question!
So, you lovely people have a problem to solve with this Soviet Russian type Government which you have “RULING” you and not as they should be, Governing you. There is a subtle difference between the two.
There have been some very good suggestions in how to get around the possible penalty you might have to pay if the tax is mentioned and all that has to be done is to expand on those thoughts.
I came up with some thoughts on this: “We regret that we cannot explain the reason for being obliged to increase our prices to the public”..and suchlike. But under the current dictatorship of the left in Australia at the moment, I have no doubt that this too would be banned. So, always be prepared with back up slogans just in case your current ones are included in the massive fines that your small minded elsh wizard is imposing on you.
As this freak was not born in Australia (no doubt she has Australian Citizenship), and when she is dumped after the next election, is it possible to withdraw from her this precious citizenship, throw here back to her valley in Wales, cancel all her no doubt very large pensions or even charge her with treason for damaging the Australian economy?
If not, then perhaps the next Government should look at changing the law in some way and make it retrospective.
Green parties should be banned worldwide. There is no doubt in my mind but that they are the left overs from the Communist Eastern block and they are out to destroy any and every country where they get into power.
I wish you luck.
It used to be:
“Advance Australia Fair”
Now it is more like:
Get rid of the bitch with the RED hair!!
10
Here in The Great White North–Canada where polar bears frolic and beavers dam up streams–I stand in amazement. I hoped this article was just a mirage; my eyes playing tricks on me. It wasn’t. Why is this happening in Australia? How can a government make a law that requires a business to conceal why it is increasing prices? Surely there will be a constitutional challenge to this law.
For now, here is some solace from the Psalmist.
Psalm 94:20-23
20 Can a corrupt throne be allied with you—
a throne that brings on misery by its decrees?
21 The wicked band together against the righteous
and condemn the innocent to death.
22 But the LORD has become my fortress,
and my God the rock in whom I take refuge.
23 He will repay them for their sins
and destroy them for their wickedness;
the LORD our God will destroy them.
10
It would seem to me that they cant stop any third party not paying the tax from disclosing what it is. If there were an organization where the public could go and determine what tax they incurred because of the carbon tax that would give the actual provider of the product arms length protection from the government. Kind of like a U/L label here in the states. The defense would be hey I didn’t tell the public what the tax was those guys over by there did. And as far as I know I can put anything in print I want and the government can prove me wrong if they like or they can go pound sand.
10
What i find strange is that this “law” is self defeating, for instance the whole point of the tax is to increae the cost of products that use/produce carbon therefore offering carbon free/reduced products as a financially attractive alternative.
Therefore the dir-e poluders will be driven out of business by my shrewd investment however if i receive a quote that has been artificially increased due to the carbon tax but that artificial increment is not made available to me then how am i to know that this company is on fact a dir-e poluder?
I beleive the law should be rewritten with the exact opposite in mind, flag the carbon tax increases in flashing lights as kind of a buyer beware type arrangement ensuring we collectively drive another local business of the nearest cliff and begin supporting the imported carbon tax exempt products.
10